The Long and Short Cycles

While many of us bemoan the hectic lives we lead, the shortened cycle-time of almost everything we do has, in fact, proven advantageous to projects and business. Shorter projects, faster financial returns, higher inventory turns, shortened delivery times, rapid customization, the top ten list, the bottom line results, and (of course)  speed dating. These are all benefits of our faster pace.

So, if even long projects can move faster, why do we endure cooling off periods and time-outs?  Just because things can move faster, doesn’t always mean that they should.    Some things benefit from the perspective that comes with thinking about them over time. Some of these are the laws that protect consumers from overhyped sales, gun buyers from their impulses, and new drivers from instant driving privileges. We need to protect our projects from instant-ness. While projects that are creating plans for new or unusual things can proceed with the speed and intensity that defines our 24/7 world,   there needs to be a waiting period for some basic project tasks. Here are some questions where time, not speed, is the critical ingredient:

·         Are all the features listed?

·         Are all the steps included?

·         Is the phasing appropriate to the risks?

·         What are the risks anyway?

·         Will customers actually buy this?

·         What have we forgotten?

·         Should we hire this person?

·         Is this description clear enough for off-shore teams?

·         Is the architecture right?

·         Is the schema right?

·         Is the network connection hacker-proof?

Some of these are the incompressible tasks that plague projects. They require soak time, think time, reflection, or just another look after a day or two. In this world of instant access nobody wants to wait and often it’s the project manager’s job to insure that no one does wait. But sometimes it’s the project manager’s job to make everyone wait for some special tasks to insure that the project doesn’t waste more time later.

Or as one of my friends eloquently puts it: “you can pay me a little now, or you can pay me a whole lot more later.”

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